Third Person
by Keraha
Summary: Misa wants something she can never have.


**Title:** Third Person  
**Rating** Strong PG13  
**Warning:** Various pairings between Light, Ryuuzaki, and Misa. Spoiler warning for up to 38.  
**Note:** I was looking through my old DN ficlets and found this. Written November 2004 when 38 chapters were out. (Cheesy scene breaks because ffn and I apparently don't get along, format-wise.)

* * *

Misa loved Light, except for when she didn't. 

He scared her sometimes, like when he would touch her arm softly, and he would brush his lips against her forehead. She knew with every bone in her body that he had done more, he had grabbed her wrist and pulled him to her and kissed her full on the lips. Yet she also knew with every bone in her body that he _hadn't_. It was puzzling and frightening and each time it happened, her mind would blank for just a little bit. Just for the moments where she and Light touched in a line of hyperaware flesh. Just for the moments where she had to pretend that Light loved her back.

All of his energy, she realized, went to Ryuuzaki. It traveled down his wrist into the metal shackling them together in a long-but-too-short chain that clinked softly when he tried to pretend they were alone. And from there, it was sucked into the spiderhuman that lurked on the couch, gorging its stick body with still more sweets.

"Misa doesn't like Ryuuzaki," she said to Light one day, pulling him to one side as though it would bring them out of Ryuuzaki's hearing range.

Light put his hand on her hair and smiled. "You don't have to be here, you know."

She pouted. "But Light is here and Misa can't leave her boyfriend with that pervert."

"Misa, you know that he's"

"Misa doesn't _care_!" She stomped her foot. "She wants Light to love her." When she looked down and saw Light's arm being pulled at an angle towards Ryuuzaki, she added, "without the pervert."

The chain jerked and Light's arm was flung against the wall.

"I hate this!" Misa's face crumpled, and she knew that she wanted to say that she hated him. "Why can't we be together without him?" She put her arms around Light's waist and squeezed. He was a solid weight, firm flesh underneath a sweater, and she wished that he was her weight, her anchor, her lover, just _hers_. His left arm swung and writhed at his side like a live thing, and she knew that Light's face would be impassive as ever, not showing pain or love, just an impatience to get back to Ryuuzaki and to work.

"Misa," he put his right hand on her shoulder and gently pulled himself away. "When this is all over, I promise that I'll take you out."

She knew she was being baited, but she wanted this gentle Light to be hers, and she could not resist. "On a date?" she asked, tilting her head and dimpling.

"Yes," he said, looking over to glance at Ryuuzaki who tugged on the chain, hardly pretending innocence. "On a date."

"Misa will remember what you said," she giggled. "Light swore to take Misa out on a date."

Light smiled, then winced as the chain pulled tighter. "I'm coming, Ryuuzaki," he called, and the chain immediately drooped a little bit more. Misa watched him walk away from her to the spiderhuman, now pecking away at the computer, back hunched and toes curled.

The chain between them arched towards the floor until Light reached Ryuuzaki's side. Then it kissed the carpeting and waited until they separated again to tug at both their wrists.

Misa kept her distance. She did not like Ryuuzaki and she did not like this Light. When they were like this, side by side with evidence in front of them, they become two parts of a whole, some machine driving mindlessly forward to catch kirakirakirakirakiraKIRA.

She put her hands over her ears and let her hair fall over her face. She loved Light, and she wanted him to kiss her. Light _had_ kissed her except she could not remember it, and she knew that she never _would_ remember. The spiderhuman Ryuuzaki hid in corners to watch, and in his presence, Light became someone else.

OOOOOOOOOOO

"Motivation?" Ryuuzaki asked. He held a fork in his hand, a piece of cake clinging to its tines. "I don't have any. I'm actually depressed."

I hate you, Misa thought, watching Light's face. With those words, he had changed the conversation to something that was not under her control. She hated him. She wanted Light and she wanted to play. She hated him.

"Depressed?" Light asked, concern on his face.

Show concern for _me_, Misa wanted to say. She hated how she could not separate them, that what Ryuuzaki would say would draw in Light, and Light tried to capture Ryuuzaki. She was the third, too late to be with them.

"Yes. It's because I kept thinking you were Kira. It's just a shock if that theory was wrong. No." He lifted his wrist, and the chain slid down his flesh like something permanent. "I still have suspicions about you. That's why we are doing this."

Misa watched as they talked. Life seeped into Light's face as he talked, dripping a human anger and being contained behind a civilized façade. Ryuuzaki was the same as ever, and she did not see why Light changed. Ryuuzaki was a dirty, scummy boy who had nothing to him but a mysterious name and a fetish for watching. There was no reason for them to look so alive. For either of them.

"To think how many times I thought I was going to die," Ryuuzaki mused, reaching for another cake.

I hope you get fat, Misa thought vindictively.

"Ryuuzaki," Light said, standing up. She noticed a certain trembling in his arms, a look in his eye, and she hated him, hated Ryuuzaki, hated them both. Hated them for leaving her out.

Light lunged forward and punched Ryuuzaki across the face with the full weight of his body behind him. Misa screamed. They were too alive. Too vicious for words. Ryuuzaki hit the wall, toppled over until it looked as though his neck would snap, and the chain snapped taut, pulling Light to his knees. She couldn't concentrate on what they were saying, everything was moving too fast and Light's voice was bright with anger, filled with a focused rage about Ryuuzaki and about Misa and about himself. Ryuuzaki was angry too, except his was the slow tiger awakening of realization.

"One time is one time," she heard. "One time is one time." And then the world broke down into fallen tables and shattered plates and a cake long squashed beyond help. The plant in the corner toppled over, a trail of dirt jumping out from the container, reaching out towards her like the chain jerking Ryuuzaki and Light around. She put her hands over her ears and screamed. It was too much and she wanted quiet. She wanted Light to go back to being Ryuuzaki's just so it would _stop_.

And then it did.

The phone rang three times, and Ryuuzaki and Lightcoiled and ready to hurt , their fists clenched in each others' shirts, stomachs exposed like something indecentstopped. She could hear, over her own breaths, the controlled in-out-in of Ryuuzaki and the slightly wilder pattern of Light.

They released each other after only a bare moment. It was the greater good, and Misa could not understand.

"Yes?" Ryuuzaki asked. "What happened?"

The entire room held its breath, Misa and Light listening to Ryuuzaki as he swallowed once. They shuddered as the phone clattered back into its berth.

"What's up?" Light asked.

Misa hated him. So alive, so alive for _Ryuuzaki_, and yet never alive for her. He fought with his fists and his mind, beating against the immovable object that was Ryuuzaki. He _struggled_, and yet he never resisted Misa.

All emotion, Misa thought, was swallowed by that chain. It fairly vibrated with the power of it.

She was, for one moment, utterly jealous.

OOOOOOOOOOO

"Light," Misa said, entering the room. The bed was shadowed, and she could not see where Light was, or where Ryuuzaki could be. The bedsheets rustled, and she moved towards the sound.

"What are you doing?" Light whispered. He pushed himself up into a seated position, and Misa was glad not to hear the jangle of chain. His eyes gleamed in the bare moonlight, and Misa wished it would glint like that in the day. For her.

"Misa missed Light," she said and sat down in his lap, aware of the outrageousness of the situation. She was desperate, for Light, for Ryuuzaki, for someone to recognize that she was there. She put her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his.

He inhaled quickly, and Misa could feel his heart beat through the thin material of his shirt and hers.

"Misa loves you," she said, delirious with the danger of it all. "She loves you, she love you, _I_ love you."

"Misa" he put his hand on her shoulderthe right hand, she noticedand pushed at her gently. "This isn't"

"I want you to love me," she said, and she felt her lips curl into something unattractive and hateful, something twisted and pouty and altogether too real. She felt tears in her eyes, and she felt Light's hand on her shoulder. "I want." Her breath came faster than she expected, a hitch in her throat, and she tried to laugh past the ugly shape of her mouth. "Misa wants."

"No," he murmured, hand still warm on her shoulder. "Misa…"

"She does." Misa ignored his hand and pushed him backwards. "She wants Light to love her, to see her"

"I see you," Light said, straining to get back up.

"She wants Light to see her like he sees Ryuuzaki and like he sees Kira." She crawled her way up the length of his body until she could feel the rabbitquick beats of his heart, similar and different than it had been a minute ago. "She wants Light to think of Ryuuzaki and to love Misa."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No. That's wrong."

"Ryuuzaki," she whispered in his ear, "is watching. He has an infrared camera." Light make a noise in the back of his throat, high and whining and desperate. "Misa and Light can only be together if they cover themselves with a futon." Misa didn't know what she was saying anymore, the words just came out, quicker and quicker until she was lost in the rush of being along with Light, her words making him live just as Ryuuzaki's had.

"Misa," Light said, voice strained. "Misa, stop."

"Misa loves Light," she said, and her voice quivered. "Misa loves Light, but Light only loves…" Her voice hitched again. "Light only loves Ryuuzaki."

"No," Light whispered. "No, that's wrong." He grabbed her wrist, pulled her down to him, and kissed her on the lips. Misa cried, and the tears dropped from her eyes, down to her twisted ugly mouth, and onto Light's face.

"Light is only alive," she said, "when Ryuuzaki is there."

"Stop it, Misa. That's not true. Stop it." Light's voice was ragged, and his arms crept up Misa's holding her by the shoulders. He dropped his right hand and used his left to trace the line of her hip.

In the corner of the room, a camera sat, recording it all.


End file.
